Norman had already been at Idaho State for a year when he met Marilyn. It was the summer of 1968, and he was home in Idaho Falls. Marilyn already knew of him — through a mutual acquaintance named Beverly — and when they ended up in the same booth at a pizza place, she told him so.

Norman’s opening move was to ask if she wanted to see his motorcycle. It was a Cotton scrambler, off-road. They walked to wherever he was keeping it, looked at it, and walked back to the pizza place. He got her number.

Within a week he called. They went out a few times that summer, but Marilyn had another boyfriend and the courtship stalled. It picked back up when Norman flew to Seattle to visit Van, stopped in at Ron and Kathy’s for a barbecue when their daughter Lori was just born, and somewhere in that visit took Marilyn to dinner. After that, they were dating in earnest.

The rhythm of the courtship was built around distance: Norman at Idaho State in Pocatello, Marilyn in Idaho Falls. He came home on weekends. On Wednesdays she drove down to Pocatello — about an hour in her large, unglamorous Oldsmobile — just to spend time with him. In the summers, Norman had a travel trailer parked at Palisades Reservoir, where the Harker family also kept Mike Richins’s boat. He and Marilyn would drive up, swim, fish (though she didn’t fish), and cook — him cooking, not her.

He picked her up at the Phillips house in Ammon. Don Phillips was doing construction work; Janiel was working at Sears. The carport was still a carport — the garage came later. Norman liked them, and they seemed to like him.

Norman and Marilyn were married on March 28, 1970, at the Avocet Ward building in Idaho Falls. Van was the best man. The Jackson Hole honeymoon was cancelled because of snow; they stayed in town instead. By July they had moved to La Grande, Oregon, and Marilyn was expecting their first child.